Galaxy: 52-48 to Labor

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The Sunday News Limited tabloids have a Galaxy poll of federal voting intention, conducted on Wednesday and Thursday from a sample of 1391  quite a bit bigger than Galaxy polls have traditionally been in the past  which shows Labor leading 52-48 on two-party preferred, compared with 50-50 at the last such poll a month ago. On the primary vote, the Coalition is down four points to 39%, Labor is steady on 37%, the Greens are up one to 11% and Palmer United is up two to 6%. The poll also finds 65% opposed to the paid parental leave scheme proceeding in the current budgetary environment, compared with 23% in support. Seventy-two per cent say they would rate the proposed deficit levy a broken promise, after being prompted that Tony Abbott announced before the election that there would be no new taxes, compared with 21% who thought otherwise.

UPDATE: Possum, who reads more carefully than some of us, observes that the higher sample size is due to a change in methodology, with the live interviewing (which I believe in Galaxy’s case includes a subset of mobile phone polling) supplemented by an online panel.

UPDATE 2 (ReachTEL): The monthly ReachTEL poll for the Seven Network has Labor’s lead up from 52-48 to 54-46, from primary votes of 40% for Labor and 39% for the Coalition. More to follow.

UPDATE 3: Full ReachTEL results here, showing primary votes of 38.9% for the Coalition (down 1.1% on a poll conducted in fortnight ago), 39.6% for Labor (up 2.2%), 11.2% for the Greens (down 0.3%) and 6.0% for Palmer United (up 0.4%). Also featured are leadership ratings on a five-point scale, in which Tony Abbott has a very good or good rating from 26.5% (down 4.3%) and poor or very poor from 56.8% (up 5.0%), while Bill Shorten’s respective numbers are 20.8% (up 1.8%) and 42.2% (down 0.4%). A 1% deficit levy has a net unfavourable if applied at $80,000 per annum (34.2% to 40.7%), becoming strongly favourable at $180,000 (59.3% to 23.4%), but 60.2% believe such a levy would break an election promise against 23.5% who think otherwise. Co-payments for doctor visits have 33.5% support and 56.5% opposition, with 59.0% thinking it a broken promise against 28.4% not; and 47.2% would support reducing the size of the public service to bring the budget to surplus versus 34.3% opposed.

UPDATE 4 (Morgan): Morgan now offers its fortnightly result as well, part of a glut of polling as everyone returns to the party following consecutive long weekends (Newspoll to follow this evening). It adds to the general picture of a blowout in having Labor’s lead at 55-45 (up from 52-48) on respondent-allocated preferences and 53.5-46.5 (up from 52-48) on previous election preferences, the primary votes being 37% for Labor (up three), 37.5% for the Coalition (down one), 12% for the Greens (down one) and 5.5% for Palmer United (up half).

Another interesting thing, judging by the Murdoch tabloid covers, is that the Tory media is not downplaying this, as they normally would. Perhaps a sign that they have Abbott in their sights. Get rid of him now while there is still time might be their view.

A very bad poll for the coalition.]
It wouldn’t surprise me if Abbott backs down and scales back the deficit broken promise tax and perhaps delays his paid parental leave for 1 year to try to offset some of the lost revenue.

[I am also happy on the two issues mentioned the voters are against them. It would have been interesting to have a question on universal health care as well.]
I don’t understand why they didn’t ask if Abbott is a dumb muthafarquar.

[Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull kicked off this discussion on the levy, asking “What is this?”. But senior sources rejected claims Immigration Minister Scott Morrison and Welfare Minister Kevin Andrews were among those who asked for a “please explain’’.

One senior government source insisted that Mr Abbott “hates the idea’’ of the deficit levy but can’t see another way to spread the pain on to high income earners.

Cabinet will hold talks again on Wednesday.

“It’s not something that has been discussed anywhere near cabinet,” a senior minister said.

“Seriously, I read about it in your newspaper. It’s an expenditure review committee special. People were asking: ‘What the?’,” the minister added.

Senior sources said Mr Abbott had been “enigmatic” about the tax as his cabinet raised concerns over the deficit levy reports.]

[But senior sources rejected claims Immigration Minister Scott Morrison and Welfare Minister Kevin Andrews were among those who asked for a “please explain’’.]
Why is it important for “senior sources” to “reject” these claims?

Is it because those “senior sources” don’t want the back bench to get the impression that Abbott is being abandoned by the nutty right wingers Morrison and Andrews? If it is just Turnbull attacking Abbott’s idiocy then that is understandable because they hate each other, but if it is also Andrews and Morrison, that would be a bad look.

Re: John Kaye….it’s good to see some Greens parliamentarians cutting through in the mainstream media.

In my home state of Victoria, senator Richard Di Natalie is getting positive exposure as committee chair of the Inquiry into the Audit Commission. Having seen him in person many times at various meetings and forums he is very impressive as is senator-elect Janet Rice.

The federal greens team is well balanced with a diverse range of skills and experience.

The bulk of this Galaxy was taken before the Commission of Audit scare-a-thon, the resignation of the NSW Police Minster for alleged corruption, and Abbott cancelling his Indonesian trip under a cloud. The 4 point primary loss is pretty good in these circumstances.

And it gives the NewsCorpse organs the ability to flex their muscles, and do the ‘right thing’ by their dwindling readership by seemingly bullying the government – on the back of well placed leaks.

The last Galaxy poll had L/NP 50 ALP 50 around the same time .
ReachTEL had L/NP 48 ALP 52 and
Essential had L/NP 49 ALP 51
the Newspoll prior to that week had L/NP 48 ALP 52
So I would say that on average the polls taken around now would have L/NP between 46 and 46.5 and ALP 53.5 and 54.
A little disapointing but I don’t think the Libs will recover their votr in the near future.

[Also I saw comment that hockey was in on the deceit tax decision as well. Hard to imagine the treasurer not being in on it – maybe even hockey’s idea ?]
Could it be that Hockey has finally realised that Labor reduced spending so much in their last 3 budgets that there aren’t any easy saves left, hence we need some tax increases?

All of Hockey’s bleating in opposition has turned out to be bullshit. No wonder he goes on Alan Jones and start talking about how much he hates windmills and how he would rather be a singer right now.

It seems that the leak of Tony’s Tax was a total shot across the bow of his leadership.]
According to Samantha Maiden, it was a genuine leak. Not just a regular pre-budget idea float to get the nasty things out of the way early.